RetroHate

Don’t Say Goodbye

You know what I hate? Good-byes.

I wasn’t among the first contributors to 1 More Castle, nor was I the last. (I was possibly the most inconsistent though ;) I have however, been here, watching, from the very beginning. 1 More Castle launched around the time when I was still headfirst in the retro gaming scene but had moved away from hosting my written and video content on my own website (cost and time overhead was too much). Sometime after the initial creation of 1 More Castle, Eric Bailey put out another call for contributors so I pitched him several ideas. He immediately liked my idea of a somewhat tongue-in-cheek column that focused on the annoying and negative aspects of retro games. And thus, RetroHate was born.

Goodbyes are overrated. They have such a feeling of finality, like you’re never going to see that person again.

Writing for 1MC has been a fun experience, even if RetroHate never became that popular. Getting to rant about Mario Foot or Castlevania’s deadly stairs was totally worth it. Also getting name-dropped and referenced several times on the 1 More Podcastle was really awesome and something that’s very rarely ever happened to me. Guest hosting on a few episodes was also great fun, especially when I brought really obscure and bizarre Dreamcast games to the Showdown (and won;). Unfortunately, as work and school demanded more and more of my time, I wasn’t able to contribute as consistently as I wanted to. There was also a point where I became physically and creatively drained and needed some time to recover and refocus my priorities. I actually had several more articles planned, but was unable to complete them.

You know what else I hate? Retro game manuals. Sure, they were cool to read on the way home from the store & often contained a wealth of gameplay instructions, tips and plot. But what made them cool was exactly what made them suck. If you grew up impoverished like me, then you often got games second hand from pawn shops, garage sales, etc. These used games were, more often than not, loose carts with nary a box or instruction booklet in sight. This made some games nearly impossible to figure out. I still to this day do not know how to play Karate Champ on the NES as I never had the manual. Though I doubt that even with the manual I’d be able to play that broken game any better.

The closing of 1 More Castle comes at an interesting time for me as well. I recently decided that I wanted to refocus my time and efforts on fiction writing as well as art/graphic design. Not that I’m abandoning video games, no sireee. In fact, I’ve missed doing game related audio/video content like podcasts and Let’s Plays. I’m hoping that I can start doing stuff like that again soon on my YouTube channel. Of course I’m still going to miss 1 More Castle, especially the podcast. Eric, Hunter and Jason have such a great dynamic together, it was brilliant fun watching/listening to them talk about games, movies, people and strange Canadian customs. (Milk in bags? Really?)

You know what I really hate? Good-byes. So frell you all, I’m not saying goodbye. I’m going to say hello, to the future.

HEEEELLLLOOOOOOOO, FUUUUTUURRRRE!!!!!!!